![]() Two years later, however, the danger was reduced to a minimum, and in 2013 it was finally ruled out. The more data came in, the more the risk of collision increased, as engineer María Eugenia Sansaturio explained at the time: it stood at 3% for 2036. When the asteroid Apophis was discovered in 2004, in what would have been a tense Christmas for astronomers, they began to seek ways to better calculate its route, which appeared to be direct to Earth. “What tends to happen in the vast majority of cases is that, as you narrow it down, the margin of error becomes very small and the probabilities of impact are reduced to ridiculous amounts,” she adds.īut this is not always the case. As the object is observed, an attempt is made to determine its position at various points in its orbit. “First we make the discovery and an initial estimate of the orbit, which allows us to predict future impact probabilities, but with enormous margins of error,” she says. Humanity is doomed.Īccording to Julia de León, a specialist at the Canaries Institute of Astrophysics (IAC), those initial scenes are the least convincing. ![]() She passes the information to her astronomy professor (DiCaprio) in class and he proceeds to make calculations that lead to the inevitable conclusion that it will hit Earth with almost 100% certainty in six months. “It would happen this way given these circumstances.” One night, home alone with her computer, Lawrence’s character picks up on an object hurtling through space which turns out to be a nine-kilometer comet. “The way in which the discovery is depicted, aside from these observations and a few months of margin, is, I think, impeccable,” says astronomer Josep Maria Trigo, from the Institute of Space Sciences (CSIC-IEEC). The event caused massive damage and panic among the population. More than 500 people were injured by the fragments. According to the film’s director, Adam McKay, and its protagonist, Leonardo DiCaprio, “it’s about our inability to listen to scientific truths.” What happens if a comet the size of Everest comes towards Earth (climate crisis) and nobody cares? If an astronomer discovered that a gigantic space rock was going to wipe out life on the planet, what would actually happen? Chelyabinsk, Russia, February 15, 2013. It uses black humour and allegory to address our response to the climate crisis and, to an extent, Covid-19. The filmmakers took advice from one of NASA’s lead asteroid hunters, Amy Mainzer, and the movie is faithful to what such an event would be like – aside from the fact that such a problem would not be in the hands of two desperate scientists acting in a vacuum.įirst off, the film is a comedy, although many have taken it seriously. This is the closest we have come to experiencing the scenario in the movie Don’t Look Up, recently released on Netflix: a PhD student played by Jennifer Lawrence discovers that a comet is on a catastrophic collision course with Earth, and together with her professor, played by Leonardo DiCaprio, she tries to warn an indifferent world. It would graze us and a catastrophic impact could not be ruled out. On behalf of the International Astronomical Union, scientist Brian Marsden broadcast that asteroid 1997-XF11, which measured 1,500 meters in diameter, would pass within 40,000 kilometers of Earth on October 26, 2028. In 1988, an astronomer felt the need to warn the world that the apocalypse was at hand, or at least could be.
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